Bro Rudder Out,
My experience with the start pontoon was in Hong Kong, Penang, Germany, Australia, Macau, Penang again. It worked over there but I guessed that was because there was hardly any crosswind that can cause the boat to drift or pivot.
Bedok Reservoir (BR) is notorious for crosswinds due to its longer axis sitting athwart the prevailing north-eastern wind track. BR is also notorious for downpressing gusts. These are basically short but strong gusts in the middle of BR (unfortunately where our racing lanes are). The evaporating water heated up the airspace above it, causing it to rise. This created an area of lower pressure that sucks in the cooler north-easterners thus inviting the gusts to come in. Not bad eh....still remembered my hydrology and climatology which I took in school so many moons ago..haha.
I understand that the only NSA familiar with the start pontoon is the S'pore Rowing Association. I think SDBA got them to do the pontoon in the previous years. I remembered the very first time it was used for dragon boat, there were sausage buoys for the drummer to hold. The general feedback for that was, it also drift with the wind, eventually screwing up alignment. Hence that was how the drummer hold line came about. (I know, I was unfortunately there -and got sucked into the discussion - when the argument about drifting buoys happened).
Its not ideal - I agree totally with you on that but I see it as a case of 'lan-lan'. Sure as hell beat floating start, hold buoy start, hands down. I believe untill something better comes along, its really a 'bo-pian' scenario. I do know for a fact that SDBA put in the funds to SSC to invest in their own start pontoon but as it was considered as non critical (since there are commercial ones available) it just aint gonna happen
